It's been a while since I posted anything on this blog however I have been very busy on the layout during the past year completing several small buildings in and around the shed yard and cladding the Barrow Road viaduct with Wills Coarse Stone sheet and making all the scenery along the front of the layout.
My latest completed project is the conversion of 11 Bachmann mk1 coaches to P4 using Bill Bedford sprung bogies with MJT frames; Masokits gangway connectors plus other detailing.
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It has been a while since I posted anything on the forum. I have just received a John Brighton built DJH Crab 42778 from David Clarke which is fitted with sound and the attached video is a trial run on a section of the down main line past Barrow Road shed.
Before anyone comments I have noticed that the front bogie is off the rails!
Since my last post my lockdown modelling has come on leaps and bounds. The viaduct is now almost finished and has been clad with coarse stone courtesy of Mr Wills
Earlier this year I came into possession of a Proscale Princess which was originally built by Alan Sibley. The model,46200 Princess Royal, was DC with a Portescap motor and I have converted it to DCC for use on Barrow Road - not strictly prototypical but I like the model.
Alan obviously was sparing in his use of solder to assemble the kit as I had to re-attach a lot of small parts which fell off when I breathed on them!!!
Hope you like the video
46200 Princess Royal
Further work on the buildings continues with the 'new' sand dryer building, which from aerial photos in my my possession was built in the late 1940s
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I found a stock of old Formcraft bricks which I decided to use to build the front with it's pillars and use slaters english bond sheet for the remainder. On reflection this was probably not my best idea as it took rather longer to build than anticipated.
I have now completed my second Patriot conversion to P4. This loco belongs to a friend who asked me to do the conversion for him. The decoder arrived this morning, now fitted for it's first run on DCC.
Here is the youtube video link.
45504 Royal Signals passing Bristol Barrow Road Shed
4 Jubilees and 2 Patriots outside the roundhouse.
The next building on my list is the brick built shed next to the ash plant which I believe housed the plant control equipment.
The model is made from plasticard with overlays of Slaters english bond brickwork. The ladder rom the ground to the roof of the building together with the longer one to the platform on the ash plant are scratchbuilt using 1mm x 0.3mm nickel silver strip whilst the steps are 0.45mm wire. The mortar course is a wash of black acrylic which is then sand back to l
The next building on my list is the brick built shed next to the ash plant which I believe housed the plant control equipment.
The model is made from plasticard with overlays of Slaters english bond brickwork. The ladder rom the ground to the roof of the building together with the longer one to the platform on the ash plant are scratchbuilt using 1mm x 0.3mm nickel silver strip whilst the steps are 0.45mm wire. The mortar course is a wash of black acrylic which is then sand back to l
There are a lot of small buildings and structures in any shed yard not least those associated with the ash disposal plant. My latest efforts have focused on two of these - the small concrete building used by staff working the ash pit and a brick built shed which I believe housed the ash plant controls. Both are shown in the following photo.
The first model to be attempted is the concrete shed, the dimensions of which are scaled from photos in my collection, which is prob
I've been a bit busy on DIY this past week decorating the bathroom - my regime has been decorating in the morning modelling in the afternoon.
Remembering I promised some photos of the Shed in situ here are a few.
Keep safe,
Robin
Repainted the darker patch on the door wall as the photo shows it up as too dark.
Following completion of the Foreman's Hut my next building for Barrow Road is the Ambulance & Mutual Improvement Shed which was situated in the shed yard adjacent to the viaduct carrying Barrow Road itself.
With time during the current situation spent between house decoration and modelling this model has taken about a week to produce.
Construction uses two layers of plasticard - a 30thou base structure laminated with a 40thou layer of 2mm [ 6in] Evergreen V Groove sheet.
Having spent some time recently converting RTR models to P4 I decided I needed a change so here is a bit of scratchbuilding.
The office for the shed foreman was situated in front of the roundhouse entrance. Looking at the maps and the photographs in my collection, I noticed a discrepancy in size of the shed and realised that around 1949 the length of the building doubled. This being confirmed by an aerial photograph in my collection.
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Using photographs I produced a scale
Barrow Road shed had a number of locos visit yesterday and the following photos give a flavour with locos belonging to myself and a number of friends from the Scalefour Society. You know who you are.
Another Jubilee is now allocated to Bristol Barrow Road having just completed another P4 conversion of a Bachmann RTR model.
Saskatchewan - 45561- is the latest added to 45577 Bengal and 45662 Kempenfelt which I have converted in addition to Patriot 45506 as shown in my last post.
The other Jubilee 45572 Eire is on loan from David Clarke.
My latest conversion is a Bachmann Patriot which has the same chassis as the Jubilee. Wheels are again Alan Gibson with Markits crankpins which have been spaced using 4 x 1mm washers per axle. Brake shoes have been removed an refixed with additional plasticard spacers. The tender has a Dave Franks Fowler sprung chassis.
Below is a link to youtube. Question: - how do you upload videos from youtube these days?
https://youtu.be/yib4hZZ-TbI
To the north of Bristol Barrow Road shed and Lawrence Hill Junction there is an incline on an 1 in 60 gradient to Fishponds Station in the NE of Bristol. The gradient starts at 1 in 89 immediately under Barrow Road Arches, which is the road which bisects the shed yard. The working timetable limits the number of wagons descending this incline to 30. With this in mind I have just finished converting 15 Bachmann 16T minerals to P4 to add to some Parkside wagons to give a rake of 30.
Here is a
I have started to convert some of my Bachmann short firebox Jubilees to P4 in order to run them on my layout. This project had been stalled for a while as I pondered on the best way to do this, however a visit by Dave Holt, David Clarke and Steve Ridgeway in September gave me the necessary push to get on with it. My conversion replaces the wheels with an Alan Gibson 3mm axle set of drivers plus bogie and tender wheels. Replacement crankpins are Markits stainless steel products. The only other mo
Engine Shed Sidings signal box is now finished and has taken it's place on the layout. The box is constructed from a Churchward Models etched brass kit I picked up from Ebay, and contains a detailed interior from Springside items with armchair and signalmen from Modelu. The final items, shown in the photos, are the two downpipes which are attached using Modelu cast iron holderbats. Only the two nameboards to make.
It has been a while since I did any work on the roundhouse roof so I recently added the smoke hood support wires, 4 to each hood, to the 22 that are inside the shed.
The roof is entirely scratchbuilt from brass section and nickel silver wire.
The smoke hoods are of two types - 3 older wooden types which are ex Midland/LMS in origin which I scratchbuilt from plasticard and brass angle, and 19 'asbestos/concrete' units which are cast in resin by my Friend Morgan from a 3D printed master.
I am continuing the debugging of the track. Following the test of the turnouts from the Up main line into the engine shed with the 3F - shown in the previous videos - testing with my Hornby Black 5 showed that all was not well with the double slip. The Black 5 had an annoying habit of mounting the crossing V at the coaler end of the slip. This double slip was the first 'complicated' piece of track I ever built and has only recently come into full operational use. If you look closely at the slip
Chris Yates has finished building the 'temporary panel' for Lawrence Hill Junction signal box, another job done for which I am very grateful. I say temporary because it only controls the turnouts at present as I have yet to build the signals.
Chris has built in interlocking on the junction using relays with LEDs confirming turnout settings and the junction with entrance and exit to the shed yard is now fully operational.
Lawrence Hill Junction Panel
Lawrence Hill double junction
It's been a while since I updated my blog but we haven't been idle. Chris has made two Power Boxes one for the scenic side and a Booster box for the Storage sidings. Each contain a Maplins X21M Power unit, PSX circuit breakers, a DCC Concepts 12v Power supply PSU2 and NCE Units - a 5amp command unit in the main box and a Booster in the other. They do look rather smart.
Main Power Box
Booster Box
Engine Shed Sidings now has a panel for the turnouts which controls the Fishponds banke
I have been slowly plodding on with the storage sidings and have now completed turnout 26 out of 39. The main UP and DOWN sidings are finished as far as the track laying is concerned with a number of buffers to be added at a later date. They are not yet operational as the task of wiring and the addition of digital cobalt's is the next item on the schedule after track laying is complete. Extra sidings are to be installed at either end of the UP and DOWN sidings and the first of these, which leads
Just a quick update on the storage sidings. The total of turnouts built is now 11 with ten now fixed in position in the storage sidings and three of the sidings laid. The turnouts are all constructed using 1.6mm thick double sided copper clad sleepers whilst the sidings are K&L and C&L lengths of flexitrack board joints strengthened using copper clad sleeper strips.
Over the hot weather I have checked all the rail joints on the turnouts and board joints and where necessary I have wid
By way of a change I have spent some time assembling the two kits of laser cut parts for the boiler house and the stores at the rear of the shed these being the last of the buildings provided by York Modelmaking back in 2010. Both buildings are made from 2mm laser cut mdf with hard plastic [Rowmark] for the window frames and brick details which I glue to the mdf. Each building was given a coat of grey primer and coloured using Faber polychromos crayons. The tiles are also from York and are self
The layout is not operational at present as all the power supply units, NCE equipment and circuit breakers are elsewhere for fitting into two power boxes than are being made for me - thanks again Chris!
In the meantime I decided to make a start on the B7R and B7L turnouts for the storage sidings. I am using 4mm wide x 1.6mm thick copper clad strip for the sleeper timbers and Nickel silver bullhead rail.
These series of photos show the latter stages of construction. The timbers have been
